Canister filter caught my fancy about 4-5 yrs back when i first saw it at abhishek gaur place, but at that time i had small tank so didnt find it worth buying. Later i saw post of Hamza from Hyd, about making excellent canister filter, its one of the best till date and a true perfectionist DIY caniter filter. It gave lot of insight into the mechanism of it and how to make it, but i was never able to gather all the raw material and hence lost the interest in it. This year i had privilage of seeing that filter in person and how good it was, long chats with Hamza, just re ignited the desire to make it, as now i had 2 tank about 50-60 liter kept out in sun. Which meant lot of dust and algae issue.

All that made me think again and gave the push to make it. I started thinking on the raw material, searched on net for ideas as getting canister rather a good sturdy canister was the main thing. I checked the stuff i already had, i had bought power head from rajeev in one of the meets , checked that it was up and running. Now the search for the canister began.

One day while going to office i saw an shop selling RO stuff, bang that was the idea for the canister.

Walked in the shop and bingo that guy really understood my requirements and gave the stuff i needed.

Thanks for those encouraging words, they mean more spply coming from Guru like you.

Now coming to the build part.

There is 0 modification required in the canister. It has the in and out. The only thing that i have done to the canister is that i have put an .5 pipe inside it so that the water is released on the bottom and then it rise up through the filter media.

.5 inch pipe is perfect fit inside the cap of the canister, no modification what so ever required. on the bottom side of the pipe i have made small whole so that the water is also discharged from side.

Coming to the connecting part, the output i have used the standard RO connectors, they screw in and on the pipe side its simple plug in system, where you just push the pipe in and its locked. for the input, i had .5 inch standard plastic pipe coming from the power head. So i simply put the other half so that my .5 inch pipe saw mounted on it and then i locked the pipe using a zip lock. I will be clear from the picture

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now coming to the filter media, as stated i have just used basic plastic scrub used in household for dish washing, this was suggested by Hamaz, he is using the same in his sump filter. on top of that i have polyster wool and then finally active carbon.

Scrub i got for Rs 5/- each and wool i bought from bed mat and guilt maker for 20 buck, its more than enough to be used in 2-3 filters. Active carbon, it was not part of the initial run, once i tested the filter and got amazing result on just 2 days i started thinking about it. Again went back to the RO shop, its used in RO also , on ebay they are selling for 250/- i got the pack for 50/:), I have just used less than half of it for. I used old torn ladies nylon socks to make pouch of active carbon.

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the final part the power head. Its an old one which i had got from rajeevji, he has used it in his marine tank.Again simple i have added an .5 inch PV pipe to it. Made holes in the pipe on the bottom end and sealed it with standard end joint. To join that pipe to power head, i have cut as per the need and used the pipe tap connector. It will be clear from the picture what i am talking about.

Thats it, the filter has being running for past 4 days, result, its amazing, that tank is always full of algae, water is always dirty even though i do 50% WC every week, but since it has DIY substrate, and it out in sun the algae has being always an issue, but the algae is down and water clarity is drastically up. I didnt imagine just fast result.

The next level is to replace these ugly pipe fittings with better fitting either acrylic or atleast better fittings

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I am using a power head as pump, so its placed inside the tank, posting a pic of it.The main reason for not having pump inside the chamber was i didnt want to modify the canister and then worry about the leaks. Secondly like i said i have used power head so by default its placed in the tank. For me the factor was ease of putting all together with minimum modifications.

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